Putin wasn't the only KGB colonel before he became the president of Russia. He had peers and were given equal footing as him. But he had proven to be more cunning and ruthless than them so he gained power. Those low level conning salesmen you mentioned, they probably weren't savvy enough. However, if they had been as savvy as the most successful con salesman, Elon Musk, then their fates would have been different otherwise. There are those who started from the bottom, quite literally. Stalin was a pure thug who robbed banks for the Bolsheviks. He was also ridiculed for being intellectually inferior on the communist theory, especially by Lenin. And well, who lived until the ripe old age of 70, while the other was murdered in cold blood with an icepick? I neglected to mention before and what I'm trying to say now, is to not underestimate the opponent. Once the person underestimates the opponent, is when that person loses. It's the basic of art of war. I'm gonna be blunt, who is dumber? The person whose social security details were robbed in broad daylight, and that data is sold and fed to the private digital surveillance to train AI? It's certainly not the dumb ketamine addicted CEO of a conglomerate of grifting companies, nor the dumb orange president who could push the red button at any notice. To think you and I are not dumb, whose details were already put into surveillance AI, are wishful thinking and coping. Never underestimate the opposition.